Stories tagged “Swamp”
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Murky Part I
She knew she was far away from home, but she promised herself she’d push a little further each day. Momma would be so mad if she knew how deep she was going into the Florida swamps, but the alternative was mind numbing boredom around the house. T...
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Murky Part II
She scratched her name into the dirt at a tree’s base with a stick: BREE. She frowned at it. The letters were crooked and one of the Es was bigger than the other. Bree had never been good at writing without lined paper. Still, the name was there. Thi...
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Murky Part III
She wondered how deep the swamp lagoon was and what she would name it. She liked rockets, so maybe she would call in Launchpad Lake. She told herself she could bring the spaceship she made out of a milk carton tomorrow and see if it would float. A ligh...
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Murky Part IV
In a moment of crisis people say that the brain switches into “fight or flight” mode. This means that as a large, monstrous Florida alligator was lunging out of the water toward nine-year-old Bree, its wide open mouth about the size of Bree’s ent...
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Murky Part V
Eventually the giant gator’s aggression settled and he sunk back into the lagoon. Bree used this opportunity to drop from the tree and make a quick exit. The next day, she brought a small yellow plastic box with her into the swamp . When she popp...
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Murky Part VI
Bree watched The Alligator Prince eat from her tree. She could no longer see the meat in his mouth, but he was thrashing his jaws, so she assumed he must have still been chewing. “You’ve ruled here alone for a long time, haven’t you?” she asked...
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Murky Part VII
For the next six days, Bree spent most of her time in service of his majesty the alligator. She took daily walks to the private lagoon to feed Beast. The first few times she was met with the expected violent entrance before the prince would devour the ...
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Murky VIII
The kingdom had been invaded. Adults crowded around it in thick clumps. “The biggest damn alligator I seen,” a man said to his video camera. “I’m tellin’ you, was bigger n’ my goddamn house!” Bree scrambled between sets of legs to find he...
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Pretty Things
In surprisingly quiet fashion, Gordo trudged through the swamp. Humidity what it was, he was trudging through the air nearly as much. His thick eyebrows knitted together. His uneven, misaligned eyes scanned the moonlit scene. All romanticizing aside, i...
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Trapper Joe's Secret
Trapper Joe, he sit patient-like on de porch swing and listen what de Hollywood man be say. “We wan’ put you on TV, Joe,” he promise. “We pay you de big dollah, go on de alligator hunt wi’ you and you catch de big gator. Y...
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What We Seek
“Ghost-men should pray and seek the…” A sharp voice cut his sentence short, “Ortiz, what are you mumbling about? Wait, don’t answer that. I don’t care. Get that knot undone and get in.” The silence of a wet daw...